French Minister of the Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire on Friday said he expects to reach agreement with Germany in the coming weeks on an EU digital tax targeting US technology giants.
Le Maire told journalists that a meeting in Berlin on Friday with German Federal Minister of Finance Olaf Scholz had been useful.
“I think a compromise in the coming weeks is possible and we will be able to send the clear message that we agree on a fair taxation of the Internet giants,” he added. “We made real progress today. I remain confident that we can deliver by the end of the year.”
The two ministers met for four hours to discuss a controversial EU proposal to slap a European tax on US tech giants.
The EU proposal is for a rapid 3 percent tax on revenue generated by certain kinds of activities, such as online advertising or selling personal data.
France has been pressing its EU partners to sign up to such an initiative, but Germany has been among the sceptics.
Scholz has come out in favor of a global minimum fiscal regime for multinational corporations, but media reports suggested that he was not yet convinced by the digital tax proposal from the EU.
Germany’s concern is that such a measure, which would target companies such as Google, Amazon.com Inc and Facebook Inc, would provoke retaliatory measures from the US.
Berlin would rather see an agreement in the framework of an international organization, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
According to one source close to Friday’s ministerial talks, a compromise under discussion is for the tax to be agreed in principle by the end of the year, but not implemented for 12 to 24 months.
Ireland and several northern European countries that host European bases of the tech companies targeted are not happy about the proposals.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure
RSS